Out of the Mouths of Babes

I love my children to pieces.  There is nothing I would not do for them.  I love playing with them, I love hugging them and I love making them laugh.  They truly light up my life.

I have recently had the freakin’ hectic task privilege of spending large quantities of time with my 2 favorite daughters who happen to have been on school holiday for 3 weeks!  Add to this a teething 5-month old, very little shut-eye and balancing lecturing and a new work project and you have, well, my life.  We’ve had some fun times, playing at the park, wading in the river and building river sand castles and floating stick-boats.  We've done crafts like sand art, plenty of puzzles, had tea parties, made crumpets and pancakes and generally eaten far too much delicious junk.

My absolute favorite thing to do is to listen to Bacon and Tomato chat or play together, it really makes me smile about how they think.  Tomato being the oldest manages to manipulate Bacon into doing various things her way!  E.g. Tomato says “Bacon, your horsie must be the mommy”  Bacon says “No, my horsie will be the baby”  without skipping a beat Tomato will say “Pretend your horsie is the mommy and she has a baby” quick as a flash Bacon agrees because there’s a baby in there somewhere, and this is how the game goes on, sometimes for nearly an hour, with Bacon totally oblivious to the blatant manipulation.  They do play very nicely together…… most of the time.

Overheard when they had their 4 hour camping session in the Wendy house:

T:  Stop grabbing my blankie (giggle)

B:  Wiggle wiggle

(giggling) 

T:  Mommmeeeeee

Me:  Yes?

T:  Just checking where you are

B:  Wiggle wiggle (hysterical giggling)

T:  There are crickets out here

B:   Mmmmmm

T:  Hope there aren’t any bats.  Mommeeee are there bats here?

Me:  No

T:  Oh, ok just checking………. Are you sure?  I think I saw one!!

Me:  Yes I’m sure, go to sleep!

B:  Ow you hurt me

T:  Sorry

B:  That’s OK (excited squeaking)

T:  Shhhh Mommy is going to get cross

B:  (More excited squeaking)

T:  B-A-C-O-N!!!!!

B:  Yes?

T:  Be quiet.  We should have brought more toys

B:  There’s some in the dupspin

T:  It’s dustbin, dustbin, say dustbin

B:  Dupspin

T:  Aaaagh never mind!!  Go to sleep

B:  You first (hysterical squeaking and giggling)

Ah yes very cute to listen to.  Interesting that Tomato is correcting her sister when she still says Cutecumber (cucumber), Complayx (complex) and Reddio (radio).  I must admit that her vocab is very good so I haven’t really corrected her on these mispronunciations because I’m still enjoying the cute factor.

Ja Ons Praat Nou die Taal

Anyhoo, seeing as we had a lot of time together I thought a new language was in order.  Now Afrikaans is the only other language that I know.  Well OK I did take Zulu until matric but I wouldn’t go bragging about how fluent I am.  I don’t know any swear words in Zulu (which is the obvious acid test) but I’ve pretty much mastered the Afrikaans ones.  I’ve been practically crying with laughter imagining the little Afrikaans lady who’s B&B is on Kant Straat, pronouncing her address in her best English to potential non-Afrikaans-speaking visitors and I just love the word kak, it simply says it all.  It is also very true that there are many sayings that are just not translatable like “my gat se deksel”.  

Anyway I thought it was time the chicks learnt Afrikaans.  So we’ve been going through a few vocab words and meal times now include “Dankie Mama en Papa” and “asseblief” and anything else they ask what it is in Afrikaans – very cute.  I sometimes forget how small Bacon is, so I kissed her goodnight and asked her if she’d had a nice day and she said “Ja Mama” how cute!  But then she said “how do you kiss in Afrikaans?”  Shame I think she was looking for the word, but I thought that was adorable!  Funny how they both cottoned onto sjokolade (chocolate) so hubby and my secret language is under threat of being understood dammit!! 

Toilet Training 101

Bacon is now nappy-free (woohoo!) but I always take her for a quick wee when I go to sleep, just in case she can’t make it through the night.  This has given me endless amusement, from her almost walking into the wall, falling asleep on the toilet and last night was my favorite when she got off, wiped and threw the paper into the bath!! 

Not so fun but funny

Yes, we’ve also had the tantrums.  Interestingly I’ve been screamed at to “stop using your plastic voice!!” which apparently is the voice I use when I pretend to listen to what she’s saying, but we’re still doing it my way!  I think she’s meaning sarcastic / sarplastic LOL.

Tomato also informed me that she doesn’t want to get big and have children.  When I asked her why, she explained that she is a nice girl and really doesn’t want to have to shout at her children (ouch!) 

Well they’re both back at school and I had to chuckle when Tomato came home and informed me that she’s started drama.  She told me that she told the teacher that she’s really good at drama because her mommy says she’s the drama queen!  She was not impressed with my snickering and I wanted to explain what a drama queen was, when she pulled her top up to show me her belly button and swung her hips round and round singing “I’m sexy and I know it” OMW! she’s only 5!  And of course she's taught it to her sister!!  So pleased to see us reaping the rewards of her private school education.